Part 22 (2/2)
Whatever she had to say could wait, mostly because I didn't want to hear it.
”Danny girl,” my father sang inside my head.
I know, I know, I know.
”We have a warrant for all records pertaining to Oswald James Harrington,” Sergeant D.D. Warren explained ten minutes later, stony-faced. ”We also have a warrant for all information pertaining to Tika Rain Solis. Detective Phil LeBlanc will oversee the transfer of all information. The rest of us have questions for the staff.”
I stared at Sergeant Warren blankly. She was still holding out several official-looking doc.u.ments. For lack of anything better to do, I took them from her. They definitely read like warrants.
”I'll ... I'll have to call Karen Rober, the nurse manager,” I said at last.
”You do that.”
”Are you sure this isn't something that can wait till morning? We run a lean crew at night, and can't spare any staff.”
”I'm sure.” She didn't blink and it occurred to me that the sergeant had planned this one-thirty ambush. Nine-to-five hours would've meant dealing with management, not to mention the hospital's cadre of lawyers. Middle-of-the-night raids, on the other hand ...
”You're going to have to be patient,” I said, feeling frazzled. I'd never been served with a warrant before. How much did one give a detective? The warrant said everything, but what did that mean? The staff wasn't equipped for this. I wasn't equipped for this.
I needed to visit Lucy. She'd made it through Jorge's meltdown. I wondered if that meant she was now curled up and sleeping in a moonbeam.
”We'll move into the conference room,” Sergeant Warren declared briskly.
”Conference room?”
”You know, the room we used last time.”
”You mean the cla.s.sroom?”
”Whatever. Don't worry. We know our way there.” She started striding down the hall, two of the detectives peeling off to follow her. The fourth cop remained standing in front of me. Mid-forties, a little doughy around the middle, he wore a sheepish smile. Good cop, I decided. Anyone who worked with Sergeant Warren would have to be.
”Detective Phil LeBlanc,” he introduced himself. ”If you show me where you keep your records, I can take it from there.”
Not that big a dope, I unlocked the door leading to the Admin area and dug through the filing cabinet for the two patients in question: Oswald James Harrington and Tika Rain Solis. I pulled the files, showed Detective LeBlanc the photocopier, then called Karen.
She was half-asleep, but woke up fast enough once she heard the news. ”I'll be right there,” she a.s.sured me, which, given where she lived, meant at least an hour.
”Do we need a lawyer? How does this work?”
”Don't answer any questions you don't want to answer, and advise the rest of the staff to do the same. Showing up at one-thirty in the morning. a.s.sholes.”
”I think Sergeant Warren considers that a compliment,” I said. As if summoning the Devil, Warren appeared at the end of the hall.
”We'd like to start with you,” she said: a command, not a request.
”No s.h.i.+t,” I muttered.
I hung up the phone. As the most senior person on the floor, I would have to shoulder this load and play nice with the detectives. Lucky me.
”Fine,” I said.
”Good,” Warren returned.
”Just gotta grab a gla.s.s of water.”
”I'll wait.”
”Make yourself comfortable.”
I turned away from the detective and headed for the kitchenette. At the last minute, however, I continued down the hallway to Lucy's room. I peered in, expecting to see Lucy sleeping in a corner.
Instead, she was dancing.
She moved around the room in graceful circles, swoos.h.i.+ng from one moonbeam to the next. The oversized surgical scrub s.h.i.+rt ballooned around her as she twirled, leaping across her mattress, then pirouetting in front of the windows.
She was a cat again, moving in the languid style of a feline. Maybe she was trying to catch moonbeams in her paws. Maybe she simply liked the way it felt to sway to and fro. She hit the windows, placed her hands open-palmed against the gla.s.s. Then she stilled, and I knew she saw my reflection.
Was she angry after our last confrontation? Fearful, defiant?
Lucy turned away from the gla.s.s. Slowly, she meandered and twirled her way toward me. At the last minute, as I felt myself tense, she held out her hand, pale fingers extended. She dangled a tiny ball of string, something she'd fas.h.i.+oned from rolling together loose carpet fibers. A homemade cat toy.
I hesitated. She jiggled it again.
I accepted her gift, closing my fist around it as she swooped away, long pale limbs flas.h.i.+ng silver in the moonbeams.
I tucked her peace offering into my pocket and returned to Sergeant Warren.
I'd just entered the cla.s.sroom when I realized I had forgotten my water. I returned to the kitchenette to fetch a gla.s.s, and Greg found me. Benny and Jimmy still couldn't settle. I poured out doses of Benadryl for the two kids. Greg took the Benadryl, then I headed back to the cla.s.sroom, where the look on Sergeant Warren's face told me I still didn't have water.
I returned to the kitchenette again, this time finding a gla.s.s and banging on the tap. The other detective, LeBlanc, poked his head out of the Admin area. Copier had run out of paper.
I reloaded the copier, glancing at the records he'd already duplicated. I offered to carry the copies to the cla.s.sroom, but he refused. I shrugged, and since he appeared done with Tika's original file, I took that for myself to use as a reference.
I made it all the way to the cla.s.sroom; then, right outside the door, I realized I'd left my water gla.s.s sitting next to the copier. Back to Admin I went, grabbing my water, and making it to the cla.s.sroom with everything in hand.
Sergeant Warren glanced at her watch as I took a seat. She was flanked on either side by a detective.
”Always take you fifteen minutes to grab a drink?” she asked me.
”Oh, sometimes it takes twenty. Tonight I was lucky; I only got interrupted four or five times. Don't worry, someone will need something shortly.”
”Crazy night,” the detective on her left commented. I recognized him from the first visit. George Clooney playing the role of a Boston cop.
”Birthday party,” I said. ”Does it every time.”
”Birthday party?” he asked.
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